The report on infrastructure released today gives a transparent account of progress in this key area, says BusinessNZ.

Chief Executive Phil O’Reilly says business wants good infrastructure provision as part of an integrated set of plans for advancing economic growth.

“Appropriate infrastructure investment brings more certainty to the environment for business and promotes more private sector business investment.

“Moreover, investing in infrastructure is good for job growth – jobs involved in the building of infrastructure assets themselves, as well as jobs generated through economic growth enabled by infrastructure.

“It is encouraging to see an integrated plan for future infrastructure provision that also includes issues such as sustainability, skills training, affordable housing, facilitation for volume builders and specific needs for Christchurch’s rebuild.

“Infrastructure assets are expensive and long-lasting, and if well planned and coordinated bring confidence for enterprise.

“BusinessNZ suggests it would be worthwhile to review legislation that regulates infrastructure in New Zealand.

“It would be useful to consider how to unlock greater levels of private investment in infrastructure and to assess whether our regulatory framework strikes the right balance between serving and protecting consumers, and incentivising appropriate levels of investment.

“Given our increasingly integrated infrastructure landscape, BusinessNZ also agrees that it would be useful to assess whether New Zealand has too many industry specific regulators.”